There Ain't No Heroes Here
by Errant Reality
Summary: For all his life, something's been eating away at Puck, something he's never been able to satiate, despite all his attempts. This is the story of how Puck tries to make something significant of his life.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So, I'm doing literally what I don't need to do right now, and starting another story, despite the fact that I have another 3 waiting to be updated. This was begging to be written though, and what can I say? If I have to do it, I have to do it. **  
**It's M for language and themes at the moment. I can't say whether that will change in the future to include sex scenes; we'll see.**

Another day, another chance at nothing. That's what it felt like for Puck, sitting in the bleachers, looking out across the football field he and Finn used to dominate, before their foray into the world of singing and dancing. He hadn't set foot on the field in a red Titans jersey for far too long. The prong shaped posts called to him, but he'd given that up. The choice between Glee and football hadn't been easy, but he knew what he was doing when he made it; neither was going to get him out of that shit-hole town with its drunks and junkies and layabouts who worked in run down excuses for convenience stores, only to blow their money that same night on gambling or booze or their next hit. Highs were an expensive habit. So Puck chose the thing which gave him his high, and it sure as hell wasn't football, where their pathetic team struggled to win even one game a season. They were usually out of the competition before it had really started, the field abandoned to the cheerleaders, the grass yellowing in the Ohio sun. At least Glee had some consistency. And he didn't have to worry about his head being torn off by some asshole rival on the field.

Somewhere, the call of California burned in his ears. Thousands of pools shimmered with muck, waiting for him to clean them out. But that was miles and miles and miles away, over a horizon he couldn't even see. Scratching at the cuticle of his thumb with the index finger of his opposite hand, he growled. Two years ago, he'd been so sure; his confidence lit even the dimmest rat-hole of McKinley and people scampered out of his way, or followed with a hope of gleaning even just a little bit of his light from him. Now the school was worse than a prison. He would know, he'd been to prison. Well, juvenile detention, but it was the same shit. He used to think he was tough before he landed in there, with guys trying to defend their territory by ripping out his nipple piercing with their teeth, rabid and foaming at the mouth. Others, driven insane by their hormones, tried to fuck him against the wall, ripping at his clothes, oblivious to the fist he kept pummeling into the side of their heads. For the first time, he'd met a bunch of people who were less scared of his threats than they were of mice. Not that any of them had managed to do what they were trying, with the guards dragging them away to solitary confinement even as their screams echoed down the chilled corridors of the detention centre, but Puck was never going to forget the fierce, insane look in their eyes, or the feel of unwanted hands on his body. With the heel of his boot, he kicked the silver bench in front of him. It rang out with a dull, metallic groan, irritating him further.

He didn't want to end up like all those people. He didn't want to end up like his dad, drunk all the time and running from place to place in search of the next big break, the next lucky hand, then crawling back home to Lima, covered in bruises and filth, begging the family he abandoned for money so he could run off on his next stint. Puck's dad did things by halves. He started and raised half a family, he ran half a business, he made half a fortune, then he went and screwed it all in rooms light with bare light bulbs, over a green felt poker table. The only thing he didn't do halfway was getting himself drunk. He even made sure he only half fucked himself over; he always had more money in his pocket than he pretended when he came knocking on his family's door. In his mind, he could never hit rock bottom if he had at least some cash in his pocket, ignoring the fact that rock bottom had a lot less to do with money than it had to do with lifestyle.

But Puck, Puck had dreams. They weren't big dreams - he couldn't afford those - but they were dreams nonetheless. He wanted out of Lima. He was sick of his mother's nagging, his little sister's whining, the angry mutterings of his stepfather, who was turning out to be just as bad as his real father. Where Puck's dad abused alcohol and his wife and kids, Puck's stepdad abused his male authority to mentally and emotionally destabilise Puck. His mother had only married him two months ago, but already Puck was avoiding his house as much as possible. Out there, beyond the confines of Lima lay a brighter world, where the cougars whose pools he cleaned didn't treat him like a piece of shit, and even let him get in some extracurricular activities.

Moving his hand up, he began picking lightly at the crook of his elbow, an unconscious habit he'd picked up from watching the ice addicts scratch at their own skin as they stared with eyes as hollow and shiny as the glass they took into their blood. The unbearable agitation living in his chest picked its head up at the action and growled, sending a surge of irritated anger through Puck. He had the urge to punch the living daylights out of something. Maybe he was looking for something in a fight, maybe he was looking for something in Glee, maybe he was looking for something beyond the stretches of his imagination. The truth was, however hard he strained, it always felt like he was walking around with his eyes closed; if whatever he was looking for was out there, he just couldn't see it.

For a long time, he thought it was sex. Sex was the answer to everything; he enjoyed it, it made him feel good, it made the woman he was with feel good too, and when he was done, he felt accomplished, which was more than what he got after a day at school. He went after it the way a poor person runs after any glimmer of gold, thinking it's going to be the solution to every problem. Eventually he found that it wasn't his magical fix to the whirlpool of shit that was his life, that even at his highest point, his cock buried inside some woman, grunting as he shook with his orgasm, he wasn't even close to touching whatever it was he sought. But still, he kept going after the sex, hoping that next time would be the time that he did. In that respect, he understood his father, even while it made him resent him all the more. In the mutual struggle of human existence, they were more alike than they were different, and both of them suffered from the irritability brought on by looking in the wrong place and having no idea where the right place was or how they could find it.

It hadn't taken Puck long to figure out that it wasn't about finding the right girl either. Since he'd started high school there'd been one girl that completely caught his attention, the one girl he fantasised about when he jacked off, the girl he imagined being a good man for. And then, in the ultimate shattering of his fantasy, he'd slept with her and found that he felt no different than he had before. And as for the girl, well, everyone's heard the story about knocked up Quinn Fabray, even if for a few moments the paternity of her child was in question. Then he was thrust into the limelight beside her, the father of a baby he wasn't ready for, not really, even though his mind struggled to overcome these insecurities, smoothing them over with lies that he was. Working harder, making more money, reigning in his bad behaviour, he attempted to woo her away from her boyfriend, insistent on standing up and being the man he knew he should be - the man who was not his own father. And he fell in love with her on the way, a genuine love for that poor girl who was unwillingly the mother of a child resulting from the worst mistake of her life. While other people's mistakes disappeared in the mists of history, hers was around to stay, visible to anyone who could see, and Puck knew she'd lost everything important to her as a result. She wasn't as drunk as she pretended to be that day, and he wasn't as ignorant of this as he pretended to be; they were on her bed, he wanted her, he'd wanted her for a long time, and while she was there and willing, god knows he wasn't going to give up his chance. He thought he was close to finding heaven, or hell, or whatever the fuck it was that he thought he was looking for, and with a superstition rooted in nothing but his imagination that a condom would stop him from finding it, he fucked her without one. If he'd known that he wouldn't reach that elusive nirvana that day, he would have been more careful. Instead, it led to a disaster which made their lives spiral out of control.

No girl before or since had led him that that higher existence either, which helped him work out that that's not what was going to get him there. Rachel Berry was cute when she wasn't talking, and even though she took care of him in a way no one else had before, she wasn't the girl. Santana Lopez was smoking hot, but it wasn't right for either of them. The same with Brittany Pierce. It actually didn't surprise him to find that the two of them were dating; when he was with Santana, he was fairly certain she'd uttered 'Britt' at least once. And Quinn, well Quinn had gotten progressively more fucked up, and was now proclaiming that she was done with the boys at McKinley High, and was eagerly awaiting her future education at Yale. With his track record, Puck had a niggling suspicion that she might not be as straight as she'd always seemed either. Who knew how close those three's Unholy Trinity actually got? For a little while, Lauren Zizes alleviated the ache in him, but he found that she wasn't the girl either; she was great while she was there, he conceded, but she wasn't the closest thing she was going to find to whatever he was looking for.

And what was it he was looking for? Nirvana, some would say, although he thought that was hippie bullshit, too full of rainbows and butterflies and sunshine to be relatable to him. A shiver shrieked down his spine, and his shoulders hunched without his consent. He was cold even though the sun beat down on his black t-shirt, leeching the colour from it the same way it sucked the green from the grass. No, he realised, he was looking for escape. He wanted a different life, where he didn't feel like and ordinary human being anymore. Ordinary was for bitches; Noah Puckerman wanted life and the paths people didn't dare to tread. He wanted to be Batman, Superman, Spiderman and Wolverine all rolled into one. He wanted to be special. He wanted _everything_.

Looking out again across the dying field of grass, where a couple of cheerleaders sprang in continuous cartwheels, he felt powerful, like something solid had settled into his chest - a reason, a goal, an aspiration. If he had wings, he would have spread them at that very moment, and taken flight over Lima. But then, if he had wings, he wouldn't have been sitting there ruminating. That's why he knew, that day in May, two weeks from a graduation that wouldn't be his, he would turn his back on the life that was slowly turning its back on him. Everyone else had their goals, they had their futures, so why the fuck shouldn't he? Why should he be the one to stay stifled in the shithole town of Lima when everyone else travelled across the country for college. If they were going, then there wasn't going to be anything left for him here either. Without so much as a final sigh, he stood and stalked from the bleachers, the heels of his boots clacking against the cement. The call of California was still echoing in his mind, but it was mixed with something else - the taste of anticipation. The hunger in his soul stirred from its dormancy and growled in approval.

**A/N: I don't have a clear idea where this is going, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway.**


	2. Chapter 2

The one pen he owned rattled and echoed across the shadowed space, as he tapped it rapidly against his knee. Anyone looking at him might have thought he was nervous, but for the way he lounged on the couch, one arm outstretched across the backrest, inviting and arrogant, the other holding his pen as it tapped on the knee of a leg whose ankle was balancing precariously on the knee of his other leg. Three pairs of eyes gazed at him with wariness as they approached. He grinned, knowing he'd invaded their sacred space.

"Looks like Coach Sylvester made good on Fabray's demands," he said easily, gesturing with his head at the couch he was sitting on, and the other sitting on an uncalculated angle to it. The girls who'd approached said nothing. Not that he'd expected an answer. Not that he fucking wanted one either; he wasn't here for them - he couldn't give the slightest damn about them. The three of them piled onto the smaller couch, preferring they be too close to each other than anywhere near Puck. A chuckle escaped him, reverberating in his chest.

Shifting so he could reach his back pocket, he slid out a pack of cigarettes. Shoving it in his mouth and lighting it with a deliberate, exhibitionistic flip opening of his lighter, the one he'd quietly stolen from the convenience store when the manager was looking the other way, he made sure he blew a perfect ring of smoke before turning to the girls.

"Want one?" he asked, holding the cigarettes out to them. They stayed mute. "Whatever," he shrugged, then took another drag on the stick. "Where's the Punk Princess anyway? She's the one I'm here to see." As if they hadn't guessed that already. One of them, the one with the dark brown hair and black smudges around her eyes, shrugged; he couldn't even remember her name. He didn't even know if he knew her name. His scoff caused him to exhale his lungful of smoke through his nose, and he swallowed, trying to get rid of the stinging sensation which was making his eyes water as a result.

The sound of heels clacking against hard pavement attracted the attention of three pairs of eyes, silently praying for a salvation from Puck's presence. His eyes, however, stayed glued to the girl who'd shrugged, knowing exactly to whom the sound of those heels belonged, and not caring enough to show her the kind of respect she was getting from the other three. With his gaze on the brown haired girl, he cocked an eyebrow, noticing, even as he sucked in another breath of cigarette smoke, that despite the smudged make up, she was hot; not exactly his type, but entirely fuckable. For a pause of a moment, he wondered whether he'd be able to get her into his bed. Or even get her to go down on him there, after the rest of her gang had left; he wasn't fussed. Getting off was getting off, no matter where or when it happened. He entertained the thought for a total of three seconds, until Quinn, former train-wreck and the reason for his visit, placed a languid kiss on the other girl's mouth, at which point, he immediately added her into his fantasies, wondering how much convincing it would take for her to agree to a threesome with him and Panda Girl. The lifetime of this thought was even shorter than the last, as the certainty that Quinn was never going to sleep with him again came crashing down, tearing down the wall of fantasies in his mind.

Choking back any question of what he'd just seen, he satisfied himself with the triumphant thought that he had been right, and Quinn fucking Fabray was just about as straight as a banana. No fucking wonder she hadn't come running back to him after things with her and Finn hadn't worked out. Looks like she found someone else to keep her bed warm; and it explained why she'd never stopped hanging out with the self confessed Skanks. He wondered how long he'd been blind to the relationship in front of him, and how long the two of them had been fucking, then wondered who Quinn was blackmailing so that rumours didn't get out and spread like some rotten disease around the school.

"What do you want, Puckerman?" she said, crossing her arms and facing him. The glint of her again-blonde hair seemed too bright for this space which reeked of cigarettes and damp.

"I came to talk, but if you want to keep mackin' on your little girlfriend there, I'm cool with that too," came his reply, as easily as if it were scripted. The corner of Quinn's lips turned upwards in a sneer and she scoffed, her eyes looking at some underside of the bleachers, as if she was seeking some kind of echo of her feelings there, some justification that Puck was a fucking moron.

"Was that you trying to make a pun, Puck? because it was fucking terrible."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, taking another drag on his cigarette, then deliberately flicking the ash in her direction, watching it as the miniscule particles floated to the ground, making impact in front of Quinn's boots.

"No, I guess you wouldn't have any idea that her name is Mack," Quinn shot back, "you never cared to learn the names of everyone you fucked over. Or even the names of those you just fucked. I should feel special, I guess that you still remember who I am, but it makes me sick that I'm the only one who sticks out in your head."

"You're still not making sense, Princess. And look, whatever, I didn't come here to have you get angry at me. I thought I owed you something that I didn't owe anyone else, but if you're just gonna stand there and be all self fucking righteous, then I should go. I don't need more shit from you."

Standing, he dropped the smouldering cigarette on the cement near his feet and ground it out with the heel of his boot, releasing its smoky remnants from his lungs, feeling its final burn as it eased its way back up his oesophagus. He immediately itched for another, but stuck his hands in his pockets to stop himself from lighting up. The end of his biro stabbed into his thigh through the pocket of his jeans, and he took it out again, balancing it for a moment across the inside second knuckle of his fingers, as though it were something precious. A hint of regret sparked inside his chest, flaring for the briefest of moments, and then it was gone, the pen sailing through the air towards Quinn. To his surprise, she caught it; it would take a lot longer than a year to erase the reflexes written into her body through the rigorous cheerleading regime of Sue Sylvester. She held it with the tip of her index finger and her thumb, raising a single, perfect eyebrow at him.

"Have a souvenir. It's not like I'm gonna need it anymore. I'm outta here, Quinn. Not just this goddamn school, but this fucking town too. I'm not graduating anyway, so I don't see the point of fucking around till graduation if I'm not even gonna get that stupid fucking diploma. I came here to tell you goodbye before I left, because you're the only one who deserves one from me. Guess that was a waste of time too," he shrugged, turning away.

The shadow of the bleachers made him want to shiver as he walked away, and he clenched his fists, fighting it. He licked his lips, trying to lubricate them again since they'd gone dry from the cigarette. The last tang of it coated his tastebuds. Breathing in from his nose filled his head with the lingering scent of it. It was gone, dead, lying, a discarded shell, beneath the bleachers in a cemetery of other smoked cigarettes, but it still lived on in him, more tangible than a memory. Some things didn't die straight away - they needed time to die their true, second death. He thought that line of thinking applied only to people, but he could say the same about the cigarette, he realised. It didn't comfort him.

"His name is Damien," a voice shouted from behind him, ringing across the cement and reverberating in the metal underside of the bleachers. He stopped and turned, frowning.

"What?"

"The kid you impregnated Mack with, a month before you impregnated me with Beth, his name is Damien."

"_What_?"


	3. Chapter 3

The pain in his chest grew stronger, the invisible belt around it pulling tighter and making it harder and harder to draw breath. His heart was an impossible weight, pushing down and crushing everything inside him. A dry mouth was no help as he tried to swallow away the pressure. In front of him, a toddler with a head full of dark hair trotted in front of him on pudgy legs. Catching Puck staring, the boy flashed a wide grin, exposing a full set of teeth.

"He looks like you," Quinn stated matter of factly from the doorway she was leaning up against, as if her support kept the whole house standing. Puck squinted. He was going to scoff in response, but shortness of breath kept him from it. Quinn was right. She was fucking right, and this child, this boy he didn't even know existed, looked more like him than his own daughter did. Shit, if Quinn and Mack were telling the truth about this child's paternity, then no fucking wonder. He could even see a little of Beth in the boy, but only because he knew that they were both fathered by him. He ran a hand through his mohawk for the umpteenth time that afternoon and cursed himself. He should have been more fucking careful - it looks like the mistakes you made in youth really could fuck you up for the rest of your life. He'd always thought his mother was overreacting when she screamed at him to get his act together otherwise he'd end up just like his god forsaken father. Looks like she had a point after all. And look at what it took for him to fucking realise it.

"He kinda looks like me, I guess, if you stare really hard," he managed in response to Quinn. She scoffed.

"What the hell did you expect? A mohawk? He's your kid, not your fucking clone, Puckerman."

"Beth looks like me…," he trailed off. To the side, Quinn made a little noise, and he couldn't work out whether it was mocking him or agreeing with him. True, Beth had Quinn's fair hair, but she had Puck's expressiveness in her face.

In front of him, the boy fell on his ass with a small exhalation of air and started knocking over a tower of wooden blocks with letters painted on the sides. He was the embodiment of destruction, scattering the blocks which had been so haphazardly piled in the first place. Then, to Puck's surprise, he started putting them back together, not with any purpose of forming words, but clearly with the intent of making something anew. The pain in Puck's chest eased, ebbing until he could breathe comfortably again. Well what do you fucking know? Destroying everything only to start all over again - maybe this kid really was like him after all. Hell, a couple of hours ago he was going to get the fuck out of that shit hole town and start afresh somewhere no one knew his name. He watched as the boy put the blocks together again, the pile looking something like it did before, only in a slightly different configuration. It teetered dangerously, but stayed upright.

The kid then picked up a pen which had rolled onto the floor from the coffee table and started jamming it into the side of his teddy bear - not viciously, but out of a reflex boredom.

The bear jumped around in the boy's grip, until he was sticking it the pen in between the poor stuffed toy's legs. Puck let out a bark of laughter.

"Well, looks like the kid's a Puckerman after all. Knows where to stick things, he does. Kid's a natural."

"Damien," a voice interrupted, terse and disapproving. Puck looked up, questioning. "Damien," Mack repeated, catching his eye, "that's his name, so you'd better remember it. And do you have to be so goddamn disgusting? He's three, for fuck's sake!"

"Hey, hey, calm down, Mack, you know what I told you, Puck's an ass. If he's not thinking about sex in some form or another, you know he's either dead or dying. Ignore him. But she's right," Quinn frowned, turning to him, "get your mind out of the fucking gutter for once. You have a responsibility here."

The pain in Puck's chest returned, stabbing him in the lungs, over and over again, until he was sure that he would start leaking oxygen and bleeding all over his insides. Some part of him acknowledged that Quinn was right - this kid, Damien, was as much his responsibility as Beth would have been, had they kept her, and he should be doing something, making plans to contribute, not thinking about hopping on his motorbike and cranking it till he got as far out of Lima as a gas tank and the money in his pocket would take him. But that's what his mind was doing, and it was gone, thinking of open roads and shitty diners in the middle of nowhere, serving greasy plates of lard that were apparently supposed to pass for hamburgers. And here was Quinn and this girl he hardly remembered meeting, let alone fucking, telling him that he needed to shape up and be someone he knew he couldn't be.

"I'm supposed to take orders from a celibate whore and her pet mascot of rebellion?" he spat, regretting the words as soon as they exited his mouth. The expressions on the young women's faces slid from annoyed to furious, with a quick flash of disbelief before falling back into a mask of pure rage. Something in Puck cowered, and he opened his mouth to apologise, only to find it exploding with pain. Not the same pain that was wrenching his chest apart, but a real pain, the kind of pain he learnt at the back of bars, tossed out on his ass, drunk and delirious, blood gushing from a split lip and a sure bruise forming on his cheekbone. His face burned as he creaked his neck around to face the young women. Mack stood close to him, nursing her left hand in her right, the knuckles quickly turning a stomach churning shade of purple, Quinn standing behind her with her hand resting on her shoulder. Tentatively, he touched a finger to his face and winced when the salty skin of his index finger came into contact with the open wound on his lip. It came away red.

"I deserved that," he muttered.

"You deserve a hell lot more than that for what you just said, you fucking asshole," Quinn growled, tightening her grip on Mack, lest the girl go in for another shot with her fists.

"I know. I'm sorry. I don't even know what the shit that was. I'm sorry, to both you, I'm sorry. I fucking asked for that punch. Good swing, by the way," he nodded at Mack, who narrowed her eyes at him. Quinn's jaw tightened and he could tell she was clenching her teeth, grinding them together, the way she always did when she wanted to say something that she knew she shouldn't. Puck wished, in his haze of pain, that she would just come out and fucking say it. Too many unsaid words had passed between them already. "Where'd you learn to punch like that anyway?" he added, just to fill the silence that was stretching between them.

"It was the only way I could get my drunken, pathetic excuse for a father to stop coming into my room and touching me. People started asking questions when he turned up to work with black eyes," Mack returned in a hard voice. Quinn moved closer to her, wrapping her hands around the other girl's waist.

"Holy fuck," Puck breathed.

"I don't want Damien to grow up in a fucked up family like that one, alright? And we've been doing ok without you, and probably will keep doing ok, but I thought it would be nice for him to have his dad around. So don't you dare open your mouth and call me or Quinn anything like that again, or I swear to god I will castrate you, and you'll spend the rest of your life remembering your high school days as the best days you ever had, all the while wasting away into nothing, remembering why they were so good. Do you understand?" Mack growled. Puck nodded dumbly, unable to speak, fearing that anything he would say now would be the wrong thing. "I'm giving you a chance to get to know someone to whom you're going to be important, whether you're here or not. What's best for Damien is for him to not grow up thinking that his dad abandoned him and his mother. I'm giving you a chance to do the right thing for someone that you owe it to."

He picked at the skin at the crook of his elbow, the soft skin thin and malleable under his tough nails. His mind was somewhere else. Shit, his life had been bad, but it hadn't been that bad. And Mack had hit home. Damien didn't deserve to grow up the way he'd grown up, with a drop kick father who was drunk and useless all the time, who didn't even send birthday cards from wherever the fuck he was. Puck's heart ached for the boy, seeing a chance to redeem himself, to be the man his own father would never dare be.

And Mack; he looked at her, taking in her resolute expression, the determination in her eyes, and realised that yeah, she deserved a better life too. Once, she was just some hot chick he banged, and even though he couldn't remember when or where it had happened, she was in front of him, and he realised that there were people out there who had it worse than himself. Thinking about a small Mack, curled up in a ball in her bed in the middle of the night, terrified that the door might open and that her father would steal into the room, bringing his head close to her and whispering in his metallic alcohol breath that she'd better not scream for help, it sent shivers down his spine. He couldn't forget the hands that had expertly torn at his orange jumpsuit in juvie, and the way they kept coming, even after he knocked them back, even after he started swinging his fists. Anger boiled up in him as he imagined unwanted hands creeping over his body again, and how it had happened to Mack, probably night after night, until she'd gotten brave enough to fight back. He wondered how many times it took her, and how badly she'd been beat up in return for trying to resist, until she finally won the war with her father. She was a slight girl, small and thin and pale as a goddamn ghost, but she was tough as fucking nails under all that. He wondered if it had been happening even then, when he'd fucked her. He shook the thought out of his head.

"You're right, Damien deserves a good life, and I swear to god I'm going to try help you give it to him, alright? I know what it's like to have a fuck up father abandon you. No kid deserves that. So I'll stay. But I don't know what you want me to do. I've never really been a dad before. Never got the chance," Puck added under his breath, breaking his eye contact with Mack. "And I'm sorry about what I called you. I swear I didn't mean it. You started reminding me about what a loser I was, right when I was about to leave it all behind, and I couldn't take hearing it. It's bad enough that I say it to myself all the time…"

"As long as you don't do it again, I guess we can make things work here," Mack nodded.

"Don't freak, Puck, we're not asking for your life or anything. Just be here for Damien so he can grow up knowing you as his dad. And if you can pay for some stuff sometimes, that'd be amazing, seeing as we're all trying to work and go to school and shit doesn't just pay for itself, but that's not the reason we want you here. Damien's going to have two mothers, but he's probably going to need you too," Quinn said, staring at him with hazel eyes over the shoulder of her girlfriend. His heart did something it hadn't done for a long time as he stared back into them - it grew warm, light, filling his chest, his stomach, the very extremities of his body with this feeling. He recognised it instantly. It was love. It was hope. It wasn't for her, the way it had once been, but for what this small, unlikely, problemed group could be; a family. The family he'd always wished he had. A family he could do right by.

The longing for his bike and the long, straight road still tugged at him, but he put the feeling on the shelf. He wasn't going to be needing it for a while.


	4. Chapter 4

A rivulet of sweat slid down his forehead, catching in the corner of his eye. He wiped it away impatiently then got back to pulling the net through the thoroughly chlorinated water. The smell of it burned his nose and choked his lungs, but Mrs Galloway liked it that way. Maybe she liked her pool being a potential death trap. Maybe she liked it melting off her perfectly fake skin. Either way, he didn't fucking care, so he kept pulling the net against the water's drag, picking up errant leaves and drowned bugs, attracted by the clear water. The stupid things probably dropped dead by the time they touched the liquid. Maybe Mrs Galloway had it right - kill the bugs with chlorine instead of waiting for them to drown. Whatever. He was only here to get paid.

The woman herself came out of the house, bare feet padding along the terracotta tiles which led to the pool. She brought him a glass of water, ice cubes clinking against the sides. Muttering a gruff thanks, he took it and downed half of it in a mouthful. He regretted it instantly, the cold going straight to his head, putting pressure behind his eyes till he had to close them. He clenched his teeth till it went away. When he opened his eyes again, Mrs Galloway was looking at him, a perfect vision; blonde hair, peroxided enough times that he was sure her roots would never dare show themselves again, blue eyes, full lips tinged with pale pink lipstick, and fingernails as immaculately maintained as the rest of her. She would have fit perfectly in sunny California, but here in Ohio, she was just a fucking joke. For the first time in his life, Puck felt something other than a need to impress her. She licked her lips and gazed at him, letting her eyes travel down his shirtless chest and stomach. He swallowed the rest of the water, not caring about the way it froze his insides as it went down, and thrust the glass back into her hand, not looking at her. He went back to his pool cleaning.

That's not what she wanted. He knew it and he chose to ignore it. He was sick of her chlorine smell as he pushed her against her bedroom door and kissed her neck. He was sick of her eyebrow cocking up at him, probably the only part of her face that she could still move after all her botox, he realised. He was sick of purple nail marks on his ass from where she gripped him when she came; they stung like hell in the shower and he was tired of it. He was tired of her. So he cleaned her pool, just like he was supposed to do.

He dug out all the leaves, he changed the filter and he added enough chlorine to kill a small animal. She was still standing there, leaning against the glass topped outdoor table, watching him as he packed his equipment, getting it ready to pull back into his truck. She raised a single eyebrow as he turned to face her, smiling a little. He knew that smile - it was the one that said, 'are you ready to fuck me yet?', but instead of making him hot, the only thing it did was increase his need to get the hell out of there. Where he would have jumped at the chance, he now felt nauseous. She lifted one finger and beckoned, the blood red paint on it glinting. He fought the shudder of disgust threatening to break free and crawl up his spine to shake his body. Instead, he spread his hands.

"Well, I'm done here, Mrs Galloway, so I guess you pay me and I'll be on my way," he said, blatantly ignoring her seduction ritual. Before his eyes, her whole body turned cold; she straightened, dropping her hand and her smile, glaring at him beneath pencil thin eyebrows. For the first time, he began to question his sanity. What the fuck had he found attractive in this woman in the first place? She was as far from his type as he could get - all plastic and fakery and more concerned with keeping up with the Kardashians than with the reality of her life, like the fact that her son was failing school and her husband had trouble paying the bills because she liked to splurge on tanning salons that made her look like a fucking Oompa Loompa. She pulled money out of her bra, where she'd taken to keeping it for their little forays and he flinched. He couldn't believe he'd let her talk him into that kink. Who the fuck liked taking money out of a woman's bra with their teeth? Who in their right fucking mind would want money in their mouth? God knows where that shit had been. She counted him a couple of bills.

"Twenty five's ok, right?" she motioned, passing the bills out to him, but not moving, so he had to take a few steps to grab them. Twenty five dollars for and hour and a half's worth of work? It was a joke. But he took it. He knew what was going on; he denied her what she wanted, so she denied him his money. Bitch. But he wasn't going to be her toy boy anymore. With a sinking feeling, he realised that he'd been more than that, and more than her pool cleaner. He was her whore. As soon as he got to the front of the house, out of her sight, he threw up all over the rose bush. Everything came up; bile, chunks of lunch, some liquid he suspected might have been the water, but was so mixed with his stomach acid that it looked like neon green piss. He hurled and hurled until he had nothing left to give, collapsed on his knees, jeans dirty with his own stinking mess. Mustering up enough saliva, he spat, trying to dispel the disgusting coating on his tongue. He ran a hand along the back of his neck, wiping away the cold sweat which had taken over him, and he pushed himself to his feet, using his bunched up t-shirt to wipe away the last bits of gunk from his jeans. He threw it with the rest of his pool cleaning gear into the back of his utility truck.

The thought had pierced through all layers of his being, penetrating his brain through to his very self, the untouched bit of him that he trusted to get him through anything. Now he understood what it meant when they said you could be shaken to your very core. All this time he'd been telling himself that he had a great job, that the money was good, and that the extracurricular he was getting with the ladies was just something extra that made life better, but today was a wake up call. He wanted to slam his forehead into his steering wheel till he bled for being so stupid. How did he not see it before? Mrs Allan, Mrs Humberg, even Mrs Pierce - he was willing to bet they'd all have the same reactions as Mrs Galloway. Another wave of nausea overtook him and he swerved the truck. A car honked as it screamed past. Ignoring it, he stepped on the gas; he needed to be home as soon as he could. He needed a shower to scrub off all these layers of disgusting women who had coated him, who'd used him, toyed with him, played him and who were probably willing to throw him back in the slammer if given half a chance. He'd deserve it too.

He was a whore. He. Was. A. Whore. Not a pimp, not a playboy, not a hot high school kid who got more tail than the rest of his grade combined. All those women hired him as a pool cleaner but paid him for being a whore. And they were pack animals; he couldn't break with one and expect the others to treat him like a person. If he stopped sleeping with one, sure enough the word would get around like fucking wildfire, and the others would treat him the same. Where one went, the others followed, even to the bedroom, and especially with their wallets and their attitudes. The thought made his head spin.

When he finally stumbled through the door of his house, reeking of vomit and chlorine, he headed straight for the shower, not even caring that he stepped in still wearing his sodden, stinking clothes. He peeled them off, the denim heavy and sticking together, but he dumped them into the corner of the shower. By the time he'd finished washing himself, he'd used the entire bottle of body wash, hoping the shea butter smell would counter balance the chlorine, and that his skin was rubbed raw enough that the memory of those women's hands and tongues and lips would stop plaguing him.

Slipping past his mother, muttering something in Hebrew about disrespectful sons, he collapsed naked onto his bed, only a towel covering the lower half of his body. Burying his head in his arms, he tried to block out the light and the thoughts which hovered in his mind, picking out the things he wanted to forget and bringing them to the forefront, like his own personal fucking demons. Lying there, dreading the inevitable of having to move, he realised that Mrs Galloway was only the beginning. Yes, the others would follow suit, and he could deal with their attitudes. What he could deal with right now was how much less money he would be bringing in. He had his family to help, his mom, his little sister, he had his cleaning equipment to maintain, and to get gas for his truck. And he had Damien. He'd made a fucking promise. Guilt reached its tentacles down his oesophagus and into his stomach, threatening to pull up the bile that had built up there again. Puck bit into his pillow and screamed in frustration, smothering his whole face to kill the sound. It smelt like his cologne, the same cologne that Mrs Allan had told him she loved. Now the smell of it wanted to make him tear things to bits. Getting off his bed, his towel pulled askew, he found the little glass bottle of clear liquid and held it in his hand, tight enough that his knuckles went white from the effort. Then he opened his window and hurled it through the air, his arm muscles aching from the force. He watched it smash to bits in the neighbours backyard.

Turning back to his room, he gathered everything that reminded him of them, everything which reminded him that he was a fucking failure, the very thing he fought against becoming, and cradling them in his arms, he marched them to the bin and dumped them into the trash can. This was shit, he thought, shit that needed to go a long time ago, before he started prostituting himself for women who didn't respect him at all. They wanted my body and they got it, he realised, despising himself more and more for falling into their simple trap.

He strode back into the house, scribbled a note and gingerly took down a ceramic pig with a slot in the back. Metal rattled inside it as he taped the note to it and put it under his arm. He pulled clothes on, black jeans, a grey t-shirt and his favourite leather jacket.

"Mom? Ma, where are you?" he called, darting through the rooms. He found her in the living room, sitting with her feet up, staring at the tv. She looked at him as he came in, taking in the piggy bank under his arm, his clothes, the keys in his hand and her face crumpled.

"Naw, Ma, don't cry. I told you I was going, remember? I told you weeks ago. I can't be here anymore, not since dad came back. If I stay here, I end up just like him. I gotta go, Ma," he soothed.

"I thought you were going to stay," she mumbled, grabbing his hand and gripping it tight with her weathered fingers.

"I changed my mind, Ma. This town's a death trap. If I stay I'll end up in juvie again. But here, I saved you some money," he said, pulling an envelope out from the lining of his jacket, where he'd torn a hole just to keep it safe. It bulged and corners of green bills poked out of the top. "It's not much, Ma, but I tried. I had to give somethin' back, after all."

"Send me a postcard?" she managed after a moment, looking wide eyed at the envelope. Puck smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

"Of course. Don't worry, Mama, I'mma be ok in Hollywood, I promise."

Then he was outside, climbing onto his bike. He kicked it into gear and was off, flying down the street. He was tempted to pull out of the town right then, to keep going, keeping the piggy bank safe, the note on it left unread, but he couldn't. Guilt would have swallowed him whole, chewed him up and spat his bones back out. So he made one last stop.

He pulled into the driveway of a run down house, another motorbike languishing on the yellowing grass. Through the window he caught a glimpse of pink hair and heard the high pitched squealing laugh of a delighted child. The sound made his heart leap and his stomach twist. With the piggy bank cradled in both hands, he paused at the bottom step of the porch, torn between his made decision and the one which wanted to change his mind. They battled for a half second, before Puck took the second step, climbing to the top of the porch and gently placing the ceramic pig on the welcome mat. He jabbed a finger into the doorbell, and fled back to his bike as soon as he heard it ring out.

Jamming on his helmet and cranking his bike to life, he backed up the driveway to the street, shuffling backwards - the driveway was too narrow for him to do a U-turn. He cursed himself for not planning better as the door opened and Quinn squinted down at him. She began to take a step, but saw the piggy bank. Even from his distance, almost at the street, Puck saw the brief confusion flash in her eyes, before it was replaced by furious understanding. She took a few stumbling steps forward, screaming his name, but he'd made it to the street, his tyres kissing the hot asphalt. He kicked the bike into gear and then he was gone.


End file.
